KINGSTON >> A hearing officer has cleared former Kingston Fire Chief Christopher Rea of any wrongdoing and has recommended all disciplinary charges be dropped, he receive back pay to March 2012 and “his good name should be cleared.”

“The undersigned (hearing officer) has determined that by substantial and convincing evidence, that the city has not met the required burden of proof and recommends that the charges preferred against (Rea) ... are to be dismissed in their entirety,” John Trela, the hearing officer chosen by the city of Kingston to hear its case against the suspended chief, wrote in his July 18 decision.

Rea’s attorney, Ronald Dunn of Albany lauded the hearing officer’s recommendation and said his client is waiting to be told when to report to work.

“My client has been patiently waiting for this day for a long time,” Dunn said Tuesday. “He couldn’t wait to get on the stand. Every witness who testified supported him.”

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“The testimony was very, very compelling and unrebutted,” Dunn said. “The city really didn’t rebut any of the facts that we put in, because there was nothing they could do to rebut it.

“The city owes Chris Rea two-and-a-half years of pay and there is absolutely no legal basis for keeping him off the job for even one more day,” Dunn added. “To my expectation, the city will put him back on the payroll immediately and that we will calculate how much back pay and back benefits are owed.”

Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo called the determination “a very confused and distorted mess.”

“The hearing officer’s decision is without merit, and we think it’s misplaced and a misapplication of the law,” Gallo said.

Gallo, who suspended Rea in early 2012 and will make the final decision about whether to reinstate him, said he first will review the hearing record, which is more than 1,000 pages. He offered no timeframe for making a decision.

Gallo, a lawyer, was especially critical of the hearing officer’s finding that Rea was entitled to “supplemental pay” despite the elimination of that clause in the contract between the city and Rea that was signed in 2009. In testimony during the hearing, both former Mayor James Sottile and Rea testified that the clause — which was in the contracts of the fire chief, police chief and assistant police chief, and had been in Rea’s contract — was inadvertently left out of the 2009 contract by Gallo, who was assistant corporation counsel at the time.

In his determination, Trela said “it is critical to note that the testimony ... was not refuted, disputed or contested at the hearing” and that the city didn’t call witnesses to explain how the clause was eliminated.

“It is unequivocal that I had no involvement in negotiating or writing or preparing any contract that the hearing officer deemed valid,” Gallo said Tuesday. He said he couldn’t testify at the hearing because to do so would have required him to give up the right to make the decision about Rea’s job.

Gallo suspended Rea without pay on Feb. 9, 2012, saying the chief had a “time in attendance” issue. The move came just a month after Gallo promoted Rea from assistant chief to chief.

Rea became chief after Richard Salzmann retired from the post in January 2012, also amid allegations by Gallo of “time in attendance” issues. Salzman ultimately pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor charges of filing a false instrument for submitting claims for pay at times when he was not working. He was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay $16,618 in restitution.

Although Rea was suspended in February 2012, it wasn’t until August 2012, under order from a state Supreme Court justice, that the city charged Rea with 56 instances of misconduct and seven instances of dereliction of duty, all involving conduct alleged to have occurred dating back to 2006, when Rea was assistant chief. Among the charges lodged against Rea were that he billed both the city and the state for hours he worked teaching a state firefighter training course, downloaded sexually explicit materials onto his work computer and failed to provide proper training to Kingston firefighters.

Supreme Court Justice Henry F. Zwack last December ordered Rea be reinstated to his previous position of assistant chief and be given back pay pending the outcome of the disciplinary hearing. The city is appealing that ruling.

About the Author

Since 1990, Patricia Doxsey has been a reporter for the Freeman, covering politics, crime, and government affairs. Reach the author at pdoxsey@freemanonline.com
or follow Patricia on Twitter: @pattiatfreeman.